Think Yourself Younger, Slimmer, Stronger Could you think yourself younger? In this post I’m exploring the question why can’t you lose weight from an angle I bring up from time to time. It’s popping up now because of several recent conversations I’ve had. I’m an exercise psychology expert in addition to a movement specialist and hormone-balancing exercise expert. A recent program, observations of students, and the interpretations of results prompted this episode. Work In vs. Work Out We mindfully create instances where we’ll exercise. Then we mindlessly go about it. We tack words on to it that are counter to making it fun, have to, should, ought to. We call them workouts. There’s little joy in them. Yet they’ve become mandatory because the movement in our lives has dwindled to nothingness for many of us. We don’t do chores in the morning, we don’t shovel (we use a snow blower), we don’t wash dishes we use a dishwasher, we don’t make food we use blenders or microwave pre-prepared meals or eat out. We don’t walk or ride bikes we commute and complain about the parking lot being too far from our building. We put our washer and dryers in our master bedrooms so we don’t have to go up and downstairs. We’ve made everything so convenient that we don’t have to move very much unless we choose it. If you didn’t experience joy in movement early in your life, or you are self-conscious or in pain during movement now, you have some obstacles.  Those obstacles are already there before you reach a starting point. Then you question, what do I do? You have a limited amount of time, or limited window of willpower or discipline and if you’re stuck with incongruent, conflicting messages about what works, the moment will pass without you having done anything. Mindless exercise happens when you’re listening to music, you’re not even noticing the things along a path or you’re staring at a screen on a piece of cardio equipment. You’re purposefully dissociating from the moment. You finish without having ever really having connected any joy with the movement. You may experience some endorphins and even some serotonin but you won’t enjoy the same benefits as a vacation as when you workin. This is not yoga. Because yoga has become a brief pit-stop on a mat in Lululemons where we’re still comparing our poses to the next person or judging our own inability to balance in a pose. We go because we know we should. We don’t practice yoga, we do yoga. It’s so very different. It’s a means to an end. It’s a physical pursuit or task. Yes, it may be motivated by the need for flexibility, which is a means to an end, yet, yoga is so much more or can be. Noticing is what we’re talking about. Noticing while you’re exercising for instance the difference between the way each repetition feels, or the way your right compared to your left side feels. If you are a nightshift nurse on your feet caring for individuals and you’re suffering from adrenal exhaustion yet beating yourself up about not exercising regularly to help you get weight off, you have an opportunity.  That is an active job. You’re doing what we call Non-Exercise Activity Time or N.E.A.T. and there is a possibility that if you shifted your thoughts from calling it work to calling it exercise you can physiologically change the results of the same activity. If you think of it as “work” rather than exercise it has a different physiological effect on you. It’s been proven. It’s called the mind/body unity theory. Changing the way you think – the language you use- will change you physiologically. I named our newest program STRONGER not by accident. It is meant to from the moment you register instill a feeling that you will become stronger, that you are already stronger, and make you think of yourself as stronger. Not, thinner, fitter, curvier, but stronger. Which serves you so well in every area of your life. Will it create a more thin, fit, healthy you? Likely, yes. But striving for thin is not necessarily going to mak